While the advertising business is filled with fashionable men (even the sloppy jeans and t-shirt look is carefully curated), many guys simply don’t like to shop for clothes, especially suits. Retailers typically try to drive the reluctant shoppers into stores by advertising sales that JUST CAN’T BE MISSED!
But Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Mullen chose to take a different approach in creating a new campaign for Men’s Wearhouse, trying to convince the hesitant shopper that Men’s Wearhouse is, in fact, “A Place Where Men Belong” and touting the designer lines and services, including an on-site tailor, the chain has to offer.
“Creatively, we were really inspired by the fact that there are places that men are instinctively drawn to, where they really feel like they belong, and what’s great is that many of those places have been captured in great films and on television and even in classic sports moments,” explained Mullen creative director/copywriter David Olsen.
Out of that thinking came “Trench.” The 30-second commercial directed by Joachim Back of bicoastal Park Pictures draws thematically from classic war films and opens with soldiers hunkered down in a trench, firing back at the enemy in the middle of a raging battle that looks like it could have been cut out of a World War I film.
Suddenly, a young man (portrayed by Timothy Eulich), who is clearly not a soldier, appears in the battle trench. Trying to find his bearings, he immediately asks, “Is this Men’s Wearhouse?”
“No, it’s just over that hill,” the lieutenant (Paul Rogan) shouts as debris from an explosion rains down on the trench.
“They’ve got the top designers,” a soldier (Jody Anderson) pipes in. “Kenneth Cole, Joseph Abboud, Jones New York.”
“There’s even an on-site tailor in every day,” adds an injured soldier (Matthew Frauman) as he is carried by on a stretcher.
“We’ll let them know you’re coming,” the lieutenant informs the young man. “Release the pigeon!”
Where does George Zimmer fit into this scenario? Just when you think you won’t be seeing the Men’s Wearhouse founder and CEO, who is famous for appearing in the retailers’ ads, he shows up when the scene shifts to a Men’s Wearhouse store. “There is a place where men belong,” Zimmer intones in his gravelly voice as the young man from the “Trench” steps into the frame wearing a sharp suit. “That place is Men’s Wearhouse. I guarantee it.”
“There was never a debate as to whether he should be part of it or not,” Olsen said of Zimmer’s role in the spot. “I think the question was, ‘How do we use him, and how do we help him tie the story to the store?’ ”
Combat Zone
For his part, Back, who directed two other spots in the campaign, including “Stakeout,” loved the script for “Trench.” He only needed one clarification: “We discussed whether it was the beginning of the war or the end of the war, and we decided it would be the end,” the director said, noting the timing was important to know because it would have an impact on what type of actors he cast. “The soldiers would get skinnier toward the end of the war when there wasn’t as much food, and they’ve been fighting for a long time, so I cast bonier actors,” Back shared.
Bony actors in place, Back shot “Trench” on location at the Agua Dolce Movie Ranch in Agua Dolce, Calif. with Pawel Edelman serving as DP, and he sought to make it as authentically World War I as possible. “The more real the scene is, the funnier it is to interrupt it,” Back said.
Olsen pointed out another reason why “Trench” required a realistic look and feel. “If we’re going to say Men’s Wearhouse is selling a quality experience and quality merchandise, we really needed to make a beautifully-cinematic, quality-looking film, and that’s what Joachim was able to do.”
“He didn’t just look back at different war movies and replicate them, he put his own spin on them,” Olsen continued, adding, “From the costuming to the set design, the spot felt like it was a World War I film with more modern Saving Private Ryan-type camera work.”
Catered authenticity The director knew that he had captured the realism he was looking for when a caterer saw crew members looking at a monitor set up far away from the scene (due to the explosions) and asked, ‘What movie are you watching?’ ” Back related. “Everybody started laughing and told her, ‘This is what we’re shooting. It’s a commercial.’ “
In terms of the script, many of the lines are from the first draft.
“We wanted to talk about the Men’s Wearhouse experience and all of the different offerings–from the designers that they carry to the fact that they offer on-site tailoring,” Olsen said, noting, “We worked all of that into the dialogue pretty seamlessly by having these guys break character for a brief moment to become advocates for the brand.”
Tom Muldoon of bicoastal Nomad Editing Company cut “Trench.” “The edit was nice in the sense that we had a script to follow, and we were pretty locked into knowing what order in which the lines had to be delivered, so the challenge was, ‘What’s going to get cut?’ From a coverage standpoint, Joachim gave us so many angles and different master shots and close-ups,” Olsen praised, “and for an editor and creatives, that’s a dream.”
